About the blogger

Stephanie Curtis has produced events, daily news shows, documentaries, conferences and call-ins for MPR News. She also was among the pioneering producers who launched The Current. You can hear her discuss movies every Thursday on The Cube Critics.

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I never understood why hospitals had these products. The question could be extended to schools, as well. When I was in public school the only soda machine was in the faculty lounge, now they’re all over the place in some districts. Get rid of them from school cafeterias too. Probably more important to help the youth acquire good habits than the sick anyway.

Gary F

Stop selling them or frisk you when you come in?

Will they be checking lunch boxes?

How about sugar gum? That causes tooth decay?

Will they let able bodied people us the elevators?

Jennifer

We can still smuggle in cannabis treats as we always have.

reggie

I would expect hospitals to reflect the constantly evolving knowledge about what promotes good health, and to be consistent in policies than ban products that are known to be harmful. Cigarettes are a no-brainer, and the evidence is mounting that the ingredients in soda, cheap fast food, and other so-called junk foods have clear links to increases in obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. Harmful products ought not be sold by public entities like schools and quasi-public entities like hospitals. Forcing people to walk across the street to a nearby convenience store would reduce consumption, or at a minimum would give them a little exercise.

Out in the free market world, it’s a different story. It won’t be long until health insurance pricing is more, if not completely risk-based. We already allow life insurance to be variably priced based on whether one smokes or not. Soon we’ll have differential health insurance pricing based on some obesity factor, if not other health characteristics. When that happens, the self-destructive “it’s my right to drink 64 ounce sodas” people will be able to drink themselves to early death without expecting the rest of us to subsidize their unhealthy behavior.

Although I prefer a comprehensive, single-payer national health system, it would have the unintended consequence of continuing to shield individuals from the long-term effects of their choices. That’s not good, but maybe making those bad choices less convenient — like banning unhealthy foods and beverages in public and quasi-public places — would help mitigate the problem.

reggie

I meant banning “the sale of” unhealthy products in public places. People should be free to make bad decisions, if they don’t inflict harm or cost on others.

Wogggieee

There are come patient populations that need to be on a high calorie high protein diet and these kinds of policies seem detrimental to them.

Wogggieee

Some not come

Wally

[Wogggieee. You can edit your comment and correct typos.]

Diana

Only if his name is blue.

Wally

So Diana
I am blue
Why not you?

(Seriously . . I didn’t know that. Thanks. Something to do with signing up on Disqus?)

Diana

You’re if you’re signed up with Disqus you show up in blue.

I don’t because I’m red hot, although that doesn’t show up here 😉

Rich in Duluth

I think it’s appropriate for a hospital to set a good example by providing only healthy food. If employees or visitors want other types of food, they can pack a lunch or go to an off campus restaurant.

Philip Benson

I’d probably be happier if hospitals presented non-judgmental epidemiological probabilities instead of affronts to liberty. Stewing in sadness and anger over being insulted is not healthy, and insulting unhealthy lifestyles can cause stews to boil and even diminish the will to live. We should revere sovereign members of we the people as Kings and Queens of America, not insult them.

Karen Johnson

When I was visiting my father in the hospital in southern Minnesota, I was shocked that the cafeteria food was so unhealthy. There was always a fried/deep fried entree, something covered in cream sauces or cheese, and soup so thick with cream and cheese that it looked solid. When I was desperate I ate a plain salad that was predominately lettuce, which was not filling and had little nutrition.

I packed my own food for the day, and ate much better.

I noticed a lot of obese staff. Coincidence?

We need to align our interests, what we eat contributes to our health, and better health results in lower health care costs. Health care facilities should be leading the way in encouraging healthy food, not having soda available is a good first step. I don’t know if the facility bans soda from its grounds, or just doesn’t sell it onsite.

No one is stopping anyone from drinking soda or eating junk food, we need to try to make that not the norm. If you want it, bring it with you. No one complained when I ate food brought from home.

Ann M

McDonalds has offered more healthy foods over the years than any other fast food place. Many years ago, when I visited someone at Abbott, we ate the low fat bran muffins. Macs has tried lean burgers, low fat soft serve yogurt–they even tried carrots in some markets.What do you call unhealthy? It has been reported that kids have gained weight by drinking too much fruit juice.I was visiting in the heart surgery area and a family was eating bags of pork rinds every night.Is that better than Macs?Would you rather have a pizza joint?Get the food police to stop. Some children and adults are getting way too thin because of all this hype about weight. It affected me when I was young and there wasn’t as much hype then.If you heard the father’s call on MPR last week, you could hear the pain in his voice. Kerri ignored it because she didn’t feel that it fit into the discussion that day. Also, I know someone who ate margarine for years.(The media said butter was unhealthy)She had heart surgery. It was probably the transfats–which we didn’t know about at the time..

Wally

I just bought 20 lbs. of butter on sale.

Jim G

I try to avoid hospital food whenever possible. But when one of my family members needed emergency care and we were stuck for 10 hours in an ER waiting area from 8 P.M. until 6 A.M. the food choices available had been made for us: the vending machines around the corner. I was pleased when I found a few healthy foods. The choices available just weren’t the usual soda and carbohydrate dispensing machines I’d expected. This hospital didn’t have a McDonald’s but if it had, there would have been a few more choices, though I doubt they would have been open at 3:30 in the morning. The bottom line for me is that there needs to be healthy choices available that can meet the variety of diets folks have today.

Mary

If hospitals like Abbot Northwestern kept their cafeterias open all day there wouldn’t be the need for an on campus McDonalds. For a hospital with a great cardiac center having a McDonalds really seems to be sending the wrong message.

kim

I’m not going to pick a hospital based on their food choices. Having said that, if they really believe that some foods are better than others, it’s only common sense that those are the kinds of food they make available, since their own campus is the one place they have control over. (Unless, of course, the fried food is offered as a way to increase their client base.)

Wally

I’m not endorsing sugar-packed drinks. But . . .

1) A little sugar for someone experiencing the stress of a hospital stay isn’t going to kill them during that short time.

2) What about the unhealthy effects of the exorbitant costs, and the need for patients, when released, to work harder and longer to pay off their bills and/or high insurance premiums?

In other words, hospitals should first do something that really matters.

RJ

Soylent Green is better!

Rufus

Organic free-range or Institutional and/or roadkill based?

RJ

I prefer the mass converted garbage truck cuaght type… however the roadkill tend to be a tad more tender.

JQP

You are what you eat!

JasonB

If you’re in a condition where you are eating food from a hospital, I’m guessing your immediate problems are more important than the long term effects of consuming sugary sodas.

Robin

The sweet drinks are rarely sweetened with real sugar, it’s often that highly processed HFCS with mercury. We’ve gotta be sensible and not health food fascists. However hospitals are for healing and help, so let’s have only good food please. Really, especially with medical marijuana available we need to have healthy food choices to avoid the munchies in a healthy way. Think good food, healthy edibles, pranayama, Yoga and water aerobics.

Steve the Cynic

There is no mercury in HFCS. When you make exaggerated claims like that, you hurt your own cause. HFCS is bad for one’s health, yes, but when when warnings exaggerate the danger, people dismiss them. (That’s why Al Gore’s climate change movie backfired; the overstatements detracted from the hard science.)

Robin

Research published in Environmental Health and conducted in part by a scientist at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has revealed that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is contaminated with the toxic heavy metal mercury.

Many of the products using HFCS may also be contaminated with mercury. Carbonated sodas are sweetened with HFCS, as are candy bars, bread, salad dressings, pizza sauce, fruit drinks and thousands of other grocery items.

The highest level of contamination found in the study http://www.ehjournal.net/content/8/1/2 was 0.57 micrograms of mercury per gram of HFCS. The EPA says that an average-sized woman should consume no more than 5.5 micrograms per day of mercury, meaning that the average American consumer may be eating five times the upper safety limit of mercury every day due to high-fructose corn syrup consumption if they consume the foods tested in the study.

The average American consumes 12 teaspoons of HFCS every day. By eating the standard American diet of processed foods, consumers are potentially exposing themselves to exceedingly high levels of mercury that far surpass the safety limits set by the EPA.

“Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup” David Wallinga, M.D.

Mercury was found in nearly 50 percent of tested samples of commercial high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), according to a new article published today in the scientific journal, Environmental Health. A separate study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) detected mercury in nearly one-third of 55 popular brandname food and beverage products where HFCS is the first or second highest labeled ingredient-including products by Quaker, Hershey’s, Kraft and Smucker’s.http://thenewstheydonttellyou.blogspot.com/2009/01/high-fructose-corn-syrup-contaminated.html?m=1

Steve the Cynic

So, what you’re talking about is mercury contamination, which may have resulted from the way some HFCS is processed. Because HFCS can be produced without mercury, that is not a problem with HFCS per se. The case against HFCS is strong enough without having to conflate it with another problem. If you focus on the mercury-HFCS connection, industry will just find a way to remove the mercury, which will make the HFCS seem less bad.

Robin

Ok, so it’s bad enough without the mercury.

Samuel

I’ll have check that out. What did Gore overstate?

Steve the Cynic

Climate-change-denial web sites that list such things are not hard to find.

David P.

There’s mercury in HFCS? Are you confusing HFCS with CFL light bulbs? Or is this some new development in Karo-land? I realize that we are adding to the mercury problem essentially every time we use electricity – so yes, one could argue that there is a tie between mercury and processing HFCS.

david

Hospitals probably should set a good example. I saw a McDonalds in a hospital once and thought it odd. But then sometimes a greasy, sodium filled, high calorie, cheap cheeseburger can make you feel better.

Mike

… for about 30 minutes.

If one were to have an acute reaction, at least there’s nearby emergency care.

Ann M

I have a feeling that you and many others(including the press) have never looked at MCDONALD’S menu.I ate their low fat bran muffins and low fat burgers that they used to offer many years ago. They have always offered many options, just like any hospital cafeteria or restaurant. Allina also has all kinds of foods in their lunch rooms,including desserts.

david

Funny this topic and your comment comes up today. Saturday was the first time I ate at a McDonalds in probably two years with the exception of an Arctic orange shake once last summer. I typically avoid fast food always for a variety of reasons, but I had a hankering for a quarter pounder with cheese. If I step foot in such a place, as rare as it is, I’m getting what I want. McDonalds trying to be healthy is like putting lipstick on a pig.

Ann M

What restaurant do you suggest? Most restaurants smother food with fatty cheese and don’t give you very much of a choice of portions, vegetables, or anything healthy.Who wants to pay for a big entree and eat yucky leftovers at home?

david

That’s true, but again not an issue for me. I just passed $10,000 in medical debt this month, and growing (and that’s WITH insurance) so eating out isn’t something I can’t afford to do enough that the health concerns are an issue. I would rather save the money for organic foods and cook at home.

David P.

To directly answer the question: I prefer hospitals that have a proven track record of healthy outcomes for their patients, at a cost that is fair. As for hospitals to visit, I don’t go for the cuisine. I understand that the hospital cannot control what the visitors eat (nor should they) but it would seem reasonable for the cafeteria to set a healthy-eating example. I remember the controversy when hospitals first banned smoking in the maternity waiting room and then took out their smoking lounges all-together. Maybe they should replace some of the visitor seating with treadmills and exercise balls. 😉

David P.

Not sure what your rant has to do with TQ. Are you?

Gene

Sounded a bit phobic to me.

Eioljg

The most important
thing is for healthy choices to be available
at a reasonable cost. Perhaps
it would be a good idea for health care places and schools to subsidize healthy
food and price junk food for profit. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Many foods that are less healthy used to be “TREATS” and not every day foods. That is the real problem with sweets, fatty/greasy food, etc.

Bruce

With they allow for moderate amounts of icecream? I remember being lost at hospital once when I was found by a friendly policemen and he brought me to the diner and he treated me to a chocolate malt somehow my parents found me there. I was six or seven maybe, it was the mid 70’s.

maybe frozen yogurt would have been just as comforting 😉

JQP

I prefer any place, hospital or otherwise, that has some healthy food options.

Steve the Cynic

Okay, I’m about fed up with Disqus. Is there any chance MPR could move away from it, or at least push Disqus to improve the software? It’s way too buggy and annoying to use, especially when there are enough posts (50) that one has to click “load more.”
— Newest comments are not always displayed.
— Newest comments can be hard to find if they’re replies to older comments.
— Date/time stamps are inconvenient.
— Having to click “load more” is annoying.
I like being able to edit comments after I’ve posted them, and to flag comments as inappropriate. The “vote up/down” feature is somewhat interesting. But I’m willing to do without those if the other problems can’t be addressed.

Michelle

It’s helpful and also really annoying for all the reasons you mentioned Steve. I’m sure some smart people at Disqus could fix some of the bugginess. I thought it was just the problems of my smartphone and neediing to get a tablet for things like this.

Steve the Cynic

I’ve used the “send feedback” feature for these (and other) issues, but I’m just one voice. Here are some of the fixes I’ve told them I want to see:

— Option for strict sorting by “newest” and “oldest” without threading, so the real newest comments can be found easily.
— Ability to personalize the default number of comments to load, if possible with an option for “load all.”
— Option to display the date/time of comments, instead of “x minutes/hours/days ago.”
— Fix the problem of new notes sometimes not appearing if they’re in the “load more” section.
Anyone who agrees with me, please consider adding your voice.

david

On a touch screen smart phone disqus is all but impossible. Switching to the chrome mobile browser has helped a lot.